WHY inREACH

with reference to Article 1 of the Reach Regulation the environmental problem targeted is the protection of human health and environment as well as the free movement of substances, on their own, in mixtures or in articles, while enhancing competitiveness and innovation.

EU regulations (EC) No. 1907/2006 of the European parliament and of the Council concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, establishing a European Chemicals Agency (REACH) and (EC) No. 1272/2008 on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP) require Producers and Importers to pass down the Supply Chain information on chemicals and how to use them safely. Anyway, there is evidence of Importers facing difficulties in evaluating and managing quality and compliance of information transferred to them by extra EU Suppliers. Indeed, beside the protection of Human Health and Environment, other issues are actually impacting European SMEs competitivity:

REACH status verification – Who (legal entity), What (exempted, pre-registered, registered…) and When (deadline for registration, or registration number).

“REACH Legal entities” – may be different from “Customs clearing Legal Entities”, so there must be precise and transparent information for Enforcement Authorities

CLP compliance check – Classification and labelling of hazardous chemicals shall be assessed to ensure adequate risk management throughout the European Union. A clear confrontation between mandatory classification (harmonized endpoints) and proposed ones (non-harmonized endpoints) has to be done by the Importer well before starting import operations.

requirements for Substances in articles – attention must actually be focused on this topic, as there are substances of particular concern, because they may have very serious effects on human health and the environment. They can be found in the ECHA “Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern for Authorisation” (Candidate List).

The Stakeholders support is very important for a proper definition of shared problems, issues and solutions proposal: if you’d like to support inREACH please get in touch with the Project Consortium now!